Love is the Answer. What is the Question?

Today I’m finishing up my five-part blog series on the nine elements of love as conceived by Henry Drummond, a 19th century author, in his book The Greatest Thing in the World. Drummond based his nine elements of love on the “love passage” from the Bible—1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

We are on Drummond’s seventh element of love, which is Good Temper:

“Love as good temper restrains the passions and is not exasperated. It corrects a sharpness of temper and sweetens and softens attitudes. Love as good temper is never angry without a cause, and endeavors to confine the passions within proper limits. Anger cannot rest in the heart where love reigns. It is hard to be angry with those we love in good temper, but very easy to drop our resentments and be reconciled.”

Drummond spends more time on this element then any other. Why? Because if you tend to lose your temper and start yelling at people, you will negate all the other elements of love—patience, kindness, generosity, humility, and all the rest. A bad temperament can get you off a loving track easier than anything else. There’s just no place for it if you want to be a loving person. So if you’re somebody who tends to lose your temper, when you feel it coming on, take a walk around the block and come back when you’re ready to deal with the issue in a calm way.

Drummond identified Guilelessness as the eighth element of love this way:

“Love as guilelessness thinks no evil, suspects no ill motive, sees the bright side, and puts the best construction on every action. It is grace for suspicious people. It cherishes no malice; it does not give way to revenge. It is not apt to be jealous and suspicious.

I had never heard the word guilelessness before I read this passage. It’s about always seeing the brighter side of life. My mom always told me, “Ken, don’t let anybody act like they’re better than you but don’t you act like you’re better than anybody else. God did not make junk! There’s a pearl of goodness in everyone. Dig for it and you’ll find it!” My wife, Margie, thinks I’m a guilelessness fanatic because I always see the good in people. One of the things that attracted her to me was that I had a lot of odd friends other people had written off. But I saw the good in them and maybe that brought out the good in them.

Sincerity is the final element of love Drummond talks about:

“Love as sincerity takes no pleasure in doing injury or hurt to others or broadcasting their seeming miscues. It speaks only what is known to be true, necessary, and edifying. It bears no false witness and does not gossip. It rejoices in the truth.”

This element also reminds me of my mother. She rejoiced in the truth. She would tell me, “Never lie. Always tell the truth. Mean what you say and say what you mean.” That’s the way Mom was. She gave it to you straight. She modeled sincerity.

Well, that ends my blog series about love—one of my favorite words and one of my favorite topics. I always say, “Love is the answer! What is the question?” because I believe love is the answer to just about any dilemma human beings can come up with. You can make all the money in the world, get tons of recognition, and have lots of power and status—and yet when you die, as my friend John Ortberg says, “it all goes back in the box.” The only thing that remains is your soul, where you store who you loved and who loved you.

So be sure to practice patience, kindness, generosity, courtesy, humility, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness, and sincerity. And I’ll add one of Margie’s favorite phrases: Always keep your I love you’s up to date. God bless!